Spring, Summer, Snow

We have had really peculiar weather recently as these before and after shots show. In the first, Wren is enjoying a popsicle last week. It was 78 degrees in the afternoon and we wore sunblock, hats and t-shirts in the garden.



The second picture was taken this evening. Wren is surveying the "doh!" [snow] from the front porch. You can also see the poor little spring flowers I planted last week, their tags snowed over and one of Frost's little "guys" [another of Wren's new words] lying forgotten under the slush.





Josh has dusted off the firelogs in the basement and we are having a nice warm fire while the spring snow accumulates. According to our local paper this weather is atypical and we should have record low temperatures and fresh powder snow on the passes tomorrow.

Random Daddy Sightings

Now that Wren can speak a bit I am able to understand his squeals more easily. This morning, we were playing in The Minivan in the Swanson's Nursery parking lot when Wren starting pointing and squeaking out the window. He was saying "dada, dada, dada" with some urgency. I looked up from my novel [which I carry at all times because Wren insists on play-driving the minivan rather than getting directly into his seat] and saw that he was pointing at a bald-headed guy in a great long-sleeved t-shirt and gray jeans. Apparently, Wren thought he was Joshua because of the head.

Since the man kept walking Wren changed to "buh bye" and resumed playing with the control panel.

I tried to explain to Wren that this guy had way bigger shoulders than Joshua. I mean, he looked like a discus thrower in that department, but perhaps that is not something babies notice.

Uh oh. I hear thumping from the bedroom. Wren has woken and is throwing books.

The Attack of the Preposition

This morning, Wren is walking around the house with a pair of spoons putting them up on things "Up, up" and then putting them on the floor and saying "down, down". Sometimes he climbs on a chair and says "up" and then gets "down down". I made a pile of folded sheets to put in the laundry cupboard and he climbed up on the pile "up" and then "down" about ten times.

He also does "ope" and "ut, ut" with drawers in which animals hide or spoons are secreted. Doors can also ope' and 'ut with the added drama of slamming and getting locked in.

I am following the prepositional olympics with my [second] mug of instant coffee and two slices of toast. These are the paths of least resistance after a long broken night of Wren with a fever and a board meeting than finished after 10pm

Still, I am loving the daylight starting earlier.

Throwupitis #3

You probably missed Throwupitis #1 and #2 because I didn't write them. Something about too much soap and getting sore fingers from hand washing and laundering bedding. Last Friday Frost had a whole night of vomiting. He was very limp on Saturday and languid on Sunday but is now recovered. On Monday Joshua came down with the disease and spent the night avoiding throwing up and feverish.

Wren followed.

Last night Wren threw up and was feverish. He is having many short naps today and refusing solids. It is at times like this that I am glad I am still nursing. All he wants to do is nurse and is very happy doing so.

I am eating extra to make up for their calorific deficiencies. Today I had egg and turkey ham on toast for breakfast, then yoghurt with honey and walnuts, then I fed a squirrel some walnuts, then I had half an orange pecan pastry and then (lunch) salad with chocolate pudding for desert.

I think it is all the nursing Wren is doing . I am just starved. The other explanation is that I am about to have a growth spurt. Lets just stick with the first approach.

Follow that giant burger!

The 4 kids are in the minivan on I5 over the ship canal bridge. A long delivery truck passes us in the lane to the left. Joshua notices it has a huge cheese and bacon burger on it and points it out to Frost.

Joshua: "Yuuum"
Frost: "No, yuck! I hate bacon"
Eve chimes in from the back "Is that the burger with pineapple in it?"
Joshua: No, its got cheese.
Frost: I know what that is... its the new breakfast croissant from Jack in a Box.
Eve: I think its that one with pineapple in.
Joshua: Yuck!
Frost: That is gross, did you say yum?
Joshua: No, I said YUCK
Eve: I said Yuck too.

The truck pulls away.

Joshua: The burger is escaping.
Frost: Follow that giant burger! I want Jack in a Box!!

I am afraid, very afraid. We need to hide the remote.

Seeds of Compassion

The Dalai Lama is in town. This morning Frost is at Children's Day at Key Arena, an event with the Dalai Lama especially for children. It is set up as part of the broader Seeds of Compassion week. It was wonderful to see all the buses lining up to drop the school-kids off. I think Ariadne might be there too because I saw the Evergreen bus.

Anyway, I dropped the kids of this morning in the fabulous almost-new minivan. I had 4 kids in the back with complete ease and amenity. I am tongue in cheek though you wouldn't know it but hey, what's not to love about mini-vanning once you relinquish the idea of yourself as someone groovy in a 60's citroen. Its like wearing big white underwear, like using your free time to watch TV, like giving up on asking your husband to help with housework. We all fall from grace into something different, or perhaps we fall from intention into grace.

The Great Lego Battle Party

On Monday, we hosted a school playdate party at which a group of 7 boys built a lego diorama called "the Great Lego Battle". They were presented with a large lego base which they populated with minifigures and castles and encampments of great complexity. Here is the base before construction began:



Unfortunately, the logistics of the event meant I failed to capture the final product adequately. There was too much icecream and chips and testosterone and Wren to remember but I found it interesting how much action was involved. Unlike grownups playing with Lego the boys did not build and then reflect on what they had made as an object. It was all a world in motion. A dwarf, in place, would suddenly rush forward and knock over a horseman with a sword and binoculars. A boat would capsize and knock over a tree. The black dragon would be captured by the "good guys" and then the "bad guys" would capture a blue flag (defining good territory). Toward the end the Battle became more codified with each boy taking a turn to move a guy and narrate what was happening like a role-playing game:

"This ninja is doing an air move and attacking this fort and BAM BAM he breaks it down and it falls ARRGGHGH"

No, you can't hit him, he's a GOOD GUY!"

My ninja is a BAD GUY

But he's got a blue flag.

He captured the blue flag. Its a decoy!

Well my dwarf captures it back. UGH.

Its not your turn.

It is.

But you moved the dragon!

Etc

It was very noisy. Wren tried to play but was rejected.

Here they are in action. It is still the building and mild skirmish phase:


Here is a detail of the armaments of a castle:

And finally, a rather splendid troop transport built by Zephyr.

Icecream obsessions

Wren took his first self-portrait on Monday. He was looking down at the camera on the dining room table and pressed TAKE.






Wren will be 16 months old this Sunday and he is increasingly opinionated. This morning he slept in until 6.30am so, instead of going straight home to nap, we could take a walk around Greenlake after carpooling. Wren loved the walk. All the way along the trail he pointed to dogs and said "oof oof" and to birds to say "kar kar" (for crows) and "mch mch" for feeding ducks (eating). He said "hat" a few times when passers by were wearing caps and became extremely excited when he saw starlings fly up into a tree "up up!!"

Another commonly repeated phrase is "die-die" meaning "dice dice". We store Joshua's role playing dice on a high shelf in the bookcase and every time I do diaper change I let Wren hold a could. As soon as he lies down for diaper change he holds out his hands and says "die-die" again and again until I submit. I am not sure what it is about the repetition but he likes to say words twice, as if for emphasis!

This picture is of a rare moment in which Wren was allowed to play with all the dice together. He is moving them from one bowl to the other.
Frost's Conservation Effort
After our walk around Greenlake we stopped at the library and the park. Wren helped at the library by removing books from the shelves indiscriminately so we were rather brief there. We managed to find a few books on lemurs for Frost to help him learn how to save the Hairy Eared Dwarf lemur. Since the Xeko game arrived in our house and Frost bought the stuffy Dwarf Lemur he is very keen to join in the conservation effort and has committed all his savings to this end. Tonight he became teary when we read that Aye Ayes are endangered in part due to local beliefs that they can cast curses which leads to them being killed out of fear.

Loving the Dump Truck
Back to Greenlake - Wren played for a long time in the sand at the playground using a borrowed dump truck and front-end-loader. He was so happy in the sand that I made an afternoon trip to Lowes to fill up with 10 bags of play sand for the neglected sandbox. Wren hated Lowes. He wanted to play in the fountain (not allowed) and to leave the cement and sand aisle (not allowed) and to be picked up when I had to push a heavy cart (not possible). After lots of struggle we made it home and the sandbox is now half filled with fresh kitty litter, oops, sand. Mental note: buy a tarp to cover it.

Helping out at School
Both boys came with me to school on Tuesday for an icecream social for incoming K-kids. Frost was very helpful, showing people around, answering questions and being generally charming and a good host. He even made nametags for himself and Wren. His read "Kid Helper" while Wren's was "Baby Helper". Wren didn't notice so it stayed on all night.


"Aye-aye"
I would love to say that the icecream social started us off on ice-cream but it started a few weeks earlier. Suffice to say that we have been very much into the ice cream of late, so much so that just breathe the word "ice cream" and Wren chants "aye-aye" [his version of the word] and rushes to the freezer door and tries to tug it open with many grunts, moans and whimpers. When it is opened for him he scoops up a tub of icecream and carries it to the island for serving. He knows the ice-cream scoop and starts the chant in the morning when we find it clean inside the dishwasher. He also tries it after lunch. Here is Wren with his first self-held cone.
I think it is amusing that he is eating icecream wearing his warmest sweater. It is sunny but it has been a very cold week. The icecream obsession has spread into the literary realm. This evening we read a library book on the history of icecream and learned the important fact that the most popular flavors are (in order): Vanilla, chocolate, neopolitan and strawberry.

Our Children Can Swim with Dolphins aka 'when do you qualify for charitable fun?'

I subscribe to a discussion list with the congenital heart information network. Its a great list to connect with other parents of kids with CHDs and some who have graduated into the great big world of adult cardiology. Alongside the many issues of concern on themes such as:

• Blueness: What is too blue? What about blue toes in the bath? Blueness that is occasional? Purplish twinges?
  
• Awful doctors: Can you believe they said that to me? Did that to her? Ignored that again?
  
• Miraculous recoveries & absurd cures: If you pray / wish / visualize / eat only celery this will go away.
  

there are these fascinating string of discussions on the subject of charities that offer treats, trips, gifts and just jolly good experiences to kids who are sick. These fascinate me.

The most well known of them is, of course, the Make a Wish Foundation referred to on the lists as MAW. It is appropriate. The politics of the MAW seem to bring mature parents to the edge of the abyss. See, unlike those shows you see on TV, to qualify for MAW kids do not have to be on death's door. The door could just be bigger or less blurry than for other kids. Those who may qualify are those who have "a life-threatening medical condition" and ages between 2. 1/2 and 18 at the time of referral are potentially eligible for a wish. But MAW seems to have different qualifying standards in different areas so while one child would qualify with a 'garden variety' critical aortic stenosis requiring a Ross procedure in another area you have to have HLHS or transplant.

Parents have to wrestle with other decisions. When to apply for charitable fun? If you apply when they are a young child they don't get as much input and may not have as much fun. But what if they really are going to get sick, too sick to go? You don't want to miss it? Or alternatively, what if they are going to get well... to well to qualify? You don't want to miss it?

Also, your child may qualify for a wish or a trip or, as I learned today - a swim with a dolphin - but you may feel icky about it. Being in mortal danger is not something to be desired and many of us with 'healthy' kids with CHD's are not eager to rock the boat and enter the realm of the newsworthy even if they qualify because of the inherent risk their condition poses.

No sirree.

So, unfortunately, we will not be swimming with dolphins anytime soon - for free or otherwise. But I am dreaming about Hawaai at the end of the year and wondering whether we could just live without a deck for a long long time in order to maintain a healthy holiday fund.

To erase all messages press erase again. Beep. Messages erased.

I think the established wisdom about SAHM's (stay-at-home-moms) is that they need a bit of alone time to recoup their grace and splendour (aka sanity). Sharing misery or exhaustion I have often been urged to take a mommy-time-out at the spa or coffee-shop or restaurant or in the basement with the door shut. It is supposed to replenish us with love for our children and husbands and cooking and all that good stuff.

Since having the nanny two mornings a week and getting a bit more sleep in the past few weeks I have to say that the opposite has been true. After a few hours away from the kids I find myself reluctant to return to being a SAHM. I know we are not supposed to say this because it might tempt a malevolent deity to teach us a lesson, but I have been remembering how nice it was when Josh and I did not have kids and it was all quiet and there was room for self expression and self determination and many other phrases with "self" at the front. I miss it! I don't want a few stolen hours, or a job that drives all the tasks of a day into less time so I work two shifts. I just want privacy.

Some of you will be mentally rephrasing that to "personal space" but that is not it. I don't just want personal space. I want P-R-I-V-A-C-Y. I would like my desk to be private so that Frost and Wren do not smash my laptop and drop the bills all over. I want my breakfast to be private so I don't have to sit in squished avocado while I spoon dripping yoghurt into someone's mouth and pour milk into ovaltine from someone else and throw out the newspaper without reading it. I want our bedroom to be private so we can have sex if and when we want to - ok, after the kids are in bed. Unfortunately, half of them are in our bed still. The larger half of the children (by mass).

Of course, I had these desires before the respite nanny but I had forgotten how it felt to really kick back and drink a whole latte and then sit a while with an empty cup. That is the sweet time. The excess of solitude. The time when the ongoing assault of the child-noise is just soothed away. Who needs a massage when you have a nanny.

Of course, my moment of privacy as a blog author has come to an end abruptly as Wren cannot fathom how to play my voicemail since he has deleted it all already. He wants the voices to come out again. Sorry.

It is an appropriate ending to this observation.